■ • 



5 - : :■' 



. o » . 



/jack \ ^, ^ ♦ * ''V'' ^ 4 



W^v< . . .. v^y.. . . . . . 

w (H; V A V 



■ i. 



Vi> * • « • 



9 • * A v 

4° 





^ 



JWi' 
American "Ethnology. 



AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY: 



BEING A SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE RESULTS WHICH HAVE FOLLOWED 
THE INVESTIGATION OF THIS SUBJECT. 

BY E: G.' SQUIER. 



The study of man, physiologically and 
psychically, is confessedly the noblest 
which can claim human attention; and 
the results of such study must lie at the 
basis of all sound organizations, social, 
civil, or religious. It involves a considera- 
tion of all his wants, his capabilities, im- 
pulses and ambitions — the manner and 
the extent in which they are affected by 
circumstances, and how conditions may be 
best combined to produce their harmoni- 
ous and healthy action and development. 
It has, therefore, the first claim upon the 
statesman, the reformer, and all those who 

by poeitioii -or (yadowments are placed 

among the leaders of men. 

The study of man, in this comprehensive 
sense, constitutes the science of Ethnology. 
The elements of this science are the results, 
the ultimates of all other sciences : it be- 
gins where the rest stop. 

" The traveller who examines into the 
physical characters and mental condition 
of the families of men with whom he comes 
in contact ; who studies their vocabularies 
and inquires into their grammar ; who is a 
spectator of their religious observances, 
and pries into the dark mysteries of their 
traditions and superstitions ; who watches 
their habits of life, and acquaints himself 
with their laws and usages — furnishes an 
important quota to the accumulation of 
ethnological materials. Scarcely less val- 
uable are the materials collected by him, 
whose tastes lead him to attend rather to 
the physiognomy of the country than to 
that of its human inhabitants ; to its climate 
and its soil, its products and capabilities, 
rather than to their faculties and actions. 
For in the determination of the important 
problem, how far the characters of particu- 
lar races are dependent upon those of the 
countries which they inhabit, the latter set 



of data are as useful as the former ; and no 
satisfactory result can ever be obtained, un- 
til both are ascertained with equal accuracy. 
So again the philologist who is working 
out, in the solitude of his study, the prob- 
lems involved in the history and science of 
Language, though he may little think of 
connecting his conclusions with the affini- 
ties of nations, is an invaluable ally. In 
the same manner, anatomists and physiolo- le- 
gists, in scrutinizing the varieties which 
the typical form of humanity undergoes, 
and contrasting the extremes of configura- 
tion, of color, and constitutional peculiarity, 
-as observable amongst the inhabitants of 
distant climes, cannot enlarge the bounda- 
ries of their own sciences, without at the 
same time rendering the most essential as- 
sistance to the ethnologist."'-* 

Equally valuable with physiological and 
philological facts, are those which may be 
gathered from civil history — especially so 
far as they serve to throw light upon the 
early seats, the numbers, migrations, con- 
quests, and interblendings of the primary 
divisions and families of men. 

It will be seen from this, that the exist- 
ence of Ethnology as a science presup- 
poses a general high attainment in all other 
departments of knowledge. It is essen- 
tially the science of the. age ; the offspring 
of that prevailing mental and physical en- 
ergy which neglects no subject of inquiry, 
and which brings the minutest points of 
the world, its most widely separated and 
diverse nations, with some knowledge of 
their history, institutions and condition, at 
once under view, enabling the student to 
arrive at conclusions under no other cir- 
cumstances attainable. The ancient phi 
losophers, even the philosophers of th 



* Edinburgh Review, Am. Ed. vol. xxix, p. 223* 



\M>. IV. 

American Ethnology. 



last age, whose horizons were compara- 
tively limited, were unable to bring within 
the range of their vision that number and 
variety of facts indispensable to the grand 
.generalizations of ethnological science. 
With every succeeding year, however, the 
difficulties which have obstructed, and still 
continue to obstruct the advance of Eth- 
nology, will become fewer and less formid- 
able ; and though ages may be requisite to 
its full development, yet henceforth it will 
present the first claim upon the attention 
of the enlightened world. 

Among'st the investigators who have 
contributed most largely towards giving 
this science its present prominence and 
high distinction, it is a matter of just pride 
to know that America has furnished some 
of the most distinguished, if it may not in- 
deed be claimed that she has furnished 
the greatest number. Nor is the circum- 
stance surprising ; for nowhere else on 
the globe is afforded so wide and so favor- 
able a field for researches of this nature. 
Nowhere else can we find brought in so 
close proximity, the representatives of 
races and families of men, of origins and 
physical and mental constitutions so di- 
verse. Within the boundaries of our own 
country, three at least of the five grand 
divisions into which the human family is 
usually grouped, are fully represented. 
The contrasts which they present, and the 
singular results which have followed their 
contact, are too striking to be overlooked 
by the philosophical observer. Upon this 
continent also is found a grand division of 
the human race whose history is involved 
in night, and the secret of whose origin 
and connections affords a constant stimulus 
to investigations of a strictly ethnological 
character. 

For these reasons, we may claim that 
Ethnology is not only the science of the 
age, but also that it is, and must continue 
to be, to a prevailing extent, an American 
science. Do we seek to know the course 
and progress of development among a 
people separated from the rest of the 
world, insulated physically and mentally, 
and left to the operation of its own pecu- 
liar elements ? The inquirer must turn to 
America, where alone he can hope to find 
the primitive conceptions, beliefs and prac- 
tices of an entire original people, in no 
considerable degree modified or impaired 



by the adventitious circumstances of inter- 
mixture or association. Do Ave desire to 
discover the results which must follow 
from the blending of men of different races 
and families ? Do we inquire in what 
consists the superiority of certain families 
over others ; to what extent they may as- 
similate with, to what repel each other, 
and how their relations may be adjusted 
so as to produce the greatest attainable 
advantage to both ? The practical solu- 
tion of these problems can only be found 
in America, where alone exist the requisite 
conjunctions. 

The inquiries of American ethnologists 
have not, however, been exclusively con- 
fined to America, nor is the eminence they 
have attained entirely due to the advan- 
tages of the ethnological field in which 
they are placed. It was left to an Ame- 
rican (Dr. Morton) to determine the eth- 
nological position of the ancient Egyptians, 
and to settle finally what for centuries had 
been in dispute, that the ancient inhabit- 
ants of Egypt were Caucasians, and not 
negroes, and that the germs of the civili- 
zation of that country came from the north- 
ward, and did not descend Are valley of 
the Nile.* 



* The subjoined are some of the principal con- 
clusions to which Dr. Morton's investigation of this 
subject have led. 

" 1. The valley of the Nile, both in Egypt and 
in Nubia, was originally peopled by a branch of 
the Caucasian race. 

" 2. These primeval people, since called Egyp- 
tians, were the Mizriamites of Scripture, the pos- 
terity of Ham, and directly affiliated with the 
Libyan family of nations. 

"3. In their physical character the Egyptians 
were intermediate between the Indo-European 
and Semitic races. 

" 4. The Austral-Egyptian, or Meroite commu- 
nities were an Indo- Arabian stock engrafted on 
the primitive Libyan inhabitants. 

" 5. Besides these exotic sources of population, 
the Egyptian race was at different periods modi- 
fied by the influx of the Caucasian nations of 
Asia and Europe— Pelasgi or Hellenes, Scythians, 
and Phenicians. 

" 6. Kings of Egypt appear to have been inci- 
dentally derived from each of the above nations. 

" 7. The Copts, in part at least, are a mixture 
of the Caucasian and the Negro in extremely va- 
riable proportions. 

" 8. Negroes were numerous in Egypt ; but their 
social position in ancient times was the same that 
it now is, that of servants and slaves. 

"9. The national characteristics of all these 
families of man are distinctly figured on the mon- 



American Ethnology. 



3 



It is not our purpose to go into a de- 
tailed exposition of what our countrymen 
have accomplished in ethnological science ; 
but we cannot omit a brief reference to 
some of the more prominent results of 
their labors. 

In the departments of physiology and 
philology their investigations have been 
conducted on a large scale, and in a ve- 
ry complete and thorough manner, and 
with eminent success. The craniological 
inquiries of Dr. S. G. Morton, as present- 
ed in that splendid monument of scientific 
research, " Crania Americana," have at- 
tracted an amount of attention second to 
none others of similar character.* 



uments ; and all of them, excepting the Scythi- 
ans and Phenicians, have been identified in the 
catacombs. 

"10. The present Fellahs are the lineal and 
least mixed descendants of the ancient Egyptians ; 
and the latter are collaterally represented by the 
Tuaricks, Kabyles, Siwahs, and other remains of 
the Libyan family of nations. 

"11. The modern Nubians, with a few excep- 
tions, are not the descendants of the monumental 
Ethiopians, but a variously mixed race of Arabs 
and negroes. 

And that "the physical or organic characters 
which distinguish the several races of men, are 
as old as the oldest records of our species." 

"^"This work," (Crania Americana,) says the 
learned Prichard, "far exceeds in its comprehen- 
siveness, and in the number and beauty of its en- 
gravings, any European work that has as yet ap- 
peared on natural varieties of the skull, and 
comprises nearly the sum of our information on 
the distinctive characters of the head and skele- 
ton in the several tribes of the new world." The 
same distinguished authority observes of Dr. Mor- 
ton's " Crania JEgyptiaca" — " A most interesting 
and really important addition has lately been 
made to our knowledge of the physical characters 
of the ancient Egyptians, from a quarter where 
local probabilities would least of all have induced 
us to look for it. In France, where so many sci- 
entific men have been devoted, ever since the 
conquest of Egypt by Napoleon, for a long time 
under the patronage of the government, to re- 
searches in the subject ; in England, possessed of 
the immense advantages of wealth and commer- 
cial resources; in the academies of Italy and 
Germany, where the arts of Egypt have been 
studied in national museums, scarcely any thing 
has been done, since the time of Blumenbach, to 
elucidate the physical history of the ancient 
Egyptian race. In none of these countries have 
any extensive collections been made of the mate- 
rials and resources which alone can afford secure 
foundation for such attempts. It is in the United 
States of America that a remarkable advance- 
ment in this part of physical science has atl-en'gth 
been achieved." 



The results relating to the aboriginal 
families of this continent, have long been 
known to the scientific world, and have 
met the general concurrence of scientific 
men. 

It has been remarked that Asia is the 
country of fables, Africa of monsters, and 
America of systems, to those who prefer 
hypothesis to truth ; and it is these alone 
who still continue audaciously to speculate 
upon the origin and connections of the 
American race, as though no grand lead- 
ing points had been established, and as 
though there was afforded a legitimate 
field for unrestrained conjecture. The 
questions thus mooted are such as can only 
be determined by a large number of con- 
current facts of different kinds ; but still, 
so far as cranial characteristics are con- 
cerned, we may regard the conclusions ad- 
vanced by Dr. Morton as substantially 
demonstrated, and look upon them as so 
many fixed points whereby to govern our 
further investigations. His general con- 
clusions, upon which all the others in some 
manner depend, is the essential peculiarity 
of the American race ; that the American 
nations, excepting perhaps those on the 
extremities of the continent, (and concern- 
ing which no sufficient data have as yet 
been collected to justify an opinion,) are 
characterized by a conformation of skull 
radically distinct from that of any of the 
other great divisions of the human family. 
To use Dr. Morton's own language, his 
observations and researches tend to sus- 
tain the following propositions : 

"1st. That the American race differs essen- 
tially from all others, not excepting the Mon- 
golian ; nor do the feeble analogies of lan- 
guage, and the more obvious ones of civil 

"With what perseverance and success Dr. Mor- 
ton's investigations have been conducted, may be 
inferred from the fact, that his collection of cra- 
nia, now deposited in the Academy of Natural 
Sciences, at Philadelphia, is not only the largest 
in the world, but neither public nor private cabi- 
nets in any country, contain a tithe of his mate- 
rials or varieties ; all obtained at his individual 
expense, and rapidly increasing by contributions 
from every part of the globe. The impetus which 
this investigation has given to science in .this de- 
partment has been sensibly felt abroad, and has 
induced the Emperor of Russia to found, at St. 
Petersburgh, a national museum exclusively dedi- 
cated to craniology, to contain the skulls of all 
the ancient and modern races of his vast do- 
minions. 



4 



American Ethnology. 



and religious institutions and the arts, de- 
note any thing beyond casual or colonial 
communication with the Asiatic nations ; 
and even these analogies may perhaps be 
accounted for, as Humboldt has suggested, 
in the mere coincidence arising from simi- 
lar wants and impulses in nations inhabit- 
ing similar latitudes. 

" 2d. That the American nations, ex- 
cepting the polar tribes, are of one race 
and one species, but of two great families, 
which resemble each other in physical but 
differ in intellectual character. 

" 3d. That the cranial remains discov- 
ered in the mounds from Peru to Wiscon- 
sin belong to the same race, and probably 
to the Toltecan family."* 

No doubt the inquirer, at first glance, 
would be somewhat startled at these pro- 
positions, and incredulously point to the 
disparities existing between the various 
families of the continent as affording a suf- 
ficient refutation of them. When, how- 
ever, we separate what is radical from 
what is incidental, or the result of circum- 
stances, it will be found that these diversi- 
ties are superficial, and that elementarily 
the various natives of the continent exhibit 
identities of the most striking kind. This 
is true, not only of their physical charac- 
teristics, but of their languages and their 
religions. And if we can point to no other 
race on the globe which has exhibited so 
many modifications, it is because there is 
no other which in its infancy, and before it 
was able to overcome or control natural 
influences, was so widely disseminated, and 
subjected to so many vicissitudes. His- 
tory, nevertheless, has some singular ex- 
amples of the changes which may be 
occasioned by circumstances, not only 
among nations of the same race, but of 
the same family. Dr. Morton points us 
to that branch of the great Arabian stock, 
the Saracens, " who established their seat 
in Spain, whose history is replete with 
romance and refinement, whose colleges 
were the centres of genius and learning 
for several centuries, and whose arts and 
sciences have been blended with those of 
every succeeding age. Yet the Saracens 
belonged to the same family with the 
Bedouins of the desert ; those intractable 
barbarians who scorn all restraints which 



* Crania Americana, page 260. 



are not imposed by their own chief, and 
whose immemorial laws forbid them to 
sow corn, to plant fruit-trees, or build 
houses, in order that nothing may conflict 
with those roving and predatory habits 
which have continued unaltered through 
a period of three thousand years."* 

That resemblances should gradually 
arise among nations of entirely different 
origins, under the influence of concurring 
conditions, is very obvious. 

" It would indeed be not only singular, 
but wonderful and unaccountable," ob- 
serves an eminent authority, "if tribes 
and nations of men, possessed of similar 
attributes of mind and body, residing in 
similar climates and situations, influenced 
by similar states of society, and obliged 
to support themselves by similar means, 
in similar pursuits — it would form a prob- 
lem altogether inexplicable, if nations thus 
situated did not contract habits and usages, 
and, instinctive]}^, modes of life and action, 
possessing towards each other many strik- 
ing resemblances." The converse of this 
is equally true ; and if admitted, it is only 
necessary to show a radical resemblance 
in certain important features between the 
various American families and nations, and 
their difference in the same respects from 
other races, in order to the complete 
demonstration of their essential homo- 
ofeneousness, and their distinct position as 
a separate people. 

Having presented the compressed results 
of Dr. Morton's investigations, it is but 
just that he should be allowed to speak 
more fully upon the points in question. 
" It is an adage among travellers, that he 
who has seen one tribe of Indians has seen 
all; so much do the individuals of this 
race resemble each other, notwithstanding 
their immense geographical distribution, 
and those differences of climate which 
embrace the extremes of heat and cold. 
The half-clad Fuegan, shrinking from his 
dreary winter, has the same characteristic 
lineaments, though in an exaggerated^ de- 
gree, as the Indians of the tropical plains ; 
and these again resemble the tribes which 
inhabit the region west of the Rocky 
Mountains, those of the great valley of 
the Mississippi, and those again which 



* Distinctive Characteristics of the American 
Race, p. 15. 



American Ethnology. 



5 



skirt the Esquimaux on the north. All 
possess alike the long, lank, black hair, 
the brown or cinnamon-colored skin, the 
heavy brow, the dull and sleepy eye, the 
full and compressed lips, and the salient 
and dilated nose. These traits, moreover, 
are equally common to the savage and 
civilized nations, whether they inhabit the 
margins of rivers and feed on fish, or rove 
the forest and subsist on the spoils of the 
chase. 

" It cannot be questioned that physical 
diversities do occur equally singular and 
inexplicable, as seen in the different shades 
of color, varying; from a fair tint to a com- 
plexion almost black ; and this, too, under 
circumstances where climate can have 
little or no influence. So also in reference 
to stature, the differences are remarkable 
in entire tribes, which moreover are 
geographically proximate to each other. 
These facts are, however, mere exceptions 
to a general rule, and do not alter the 
peculiar physiognomy of the Indian, which 
is as undeviatingly characteristic as that 
of the negro ; for whether we see him in 
the athletic Charib or the stunted Chayma, 
in the dark Californian or the fair Borroa, 
he is an Indian still, and cannot be mis- 
taken for a being of any other race. 

" The same conformity of organization 
is not less obvious in the osteological 
structure of these people, as seen in the 
squared or rounded head, the flattened or 
vertical occiput, the high cheek-bones, the 
ponderous maxillae, the large, quadran- 
gular orbits, and the low, receding fore- 
head."* 

These results, put forward upon the 
basis of a large array of carefully collected 
and well-digested facts, are well sustained 
by the opinions of other investigators, 
whose means of observation were" very 
extended, and whose judgments will not 
lightly be called in question. Says Hum- 
boldt : " The Indians of New Spain bear 
a general resemblance to those who in- 
habit Canada, Florida, Peru, and Brazil. 
They have the same swarthy and copper 
color, straight and smooth hair, small 
beard, prominent cheek-bones, thick lips, 
expression of gentleness in the mouth 
strongly contrasted with a gloomy and 



* Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics 
of the Aboriginal Race of America. 



severe look. * * * Over a million 
and a half of square miles, from Terra del 
Fuego to the River St. Lawrence and 
Behring's Straits, we are struck, at first 
glance, with the general resemblance in 
the features of the inhabitants. We think 
that we perceive them all to be descended 
from the same stock, notwithstanding the 
prodigious diversity of language which 
separates them from one another. * * 
In the faithful portrait which an excellent 
observer, M. Volney, has drawn of the 
Canada Indians, we undoubtedly recog- 
nize the tribes scattered in the savannahs 
of the Rio Apure and the Carony. The 
same style of features exists in both 
Americas." 

Dr. Prichard, after a careful review of 
the same field, presents the following con- 
current inferences : 

" 1. That all the different races, aborigi- a 
nal in the American continent, or con- 
stitutino; its earliest known population, 
belong, as far as their history and lan- 
guages have been investigated, to one 
family of nations. 

"2. That these races display consider- 
able diversities in their physical constitu- 
tion, though derived from one stock, and 
still betraying indications of mutual re- 
semblance." 

In solitary,, and, we had almost said, 
utterly unsupported opposition to this 
general testimony in favor of the physical 
uniformity of the American race, stands 
the assertion of M, d'Orbigny, that "a </ 
Peruvian is not less different from a 
Patagonian, and a Patagonian from a 
Guarani, than is a Greek from an Ethi- 
opian or a Mongolian."* 



* L'Homme Aniericain, etc., vol. i, p. 122. It 
is proper to observe that M. d'Orbigny does not 
probably mean to be understood that there are 
radical differences among the South American 
nations, as marked as a literal understanding of 
this paragraph would imply. For there is no 
-writer who attributes more striking results to the 
influence of natural causes. He states that the 
color of the South American nations bears a very 
decided relation to the dampness or dryness of 
the atmosphere. People who dwell forever under 
the shade of dense and lofty forests, clothing the 
dark valleys which lie under the steep declivities 
of the eastern branches of the Cordilleras, and 
the vast, luxuriant plains of the Orinoko and 
Maragnon, are comparatively white ; while the 
Quichua, exposed to the solar heat in dry, open 
spaces of the mountains, are of a much deeper 



6 



American Ethnology. 



It seems very probable that the distinc- I been made public, and which have never 

been disputed, we turn next to the depart- 
ment of philology. Here we find the re- 
sults of the investigations of a number of 
learned men, among whom the venerable 
Albert Gallatin stands pre-eminent. The 
researches of this gentleman have been 
mostly confined to the languages of the 
North American nations, but he has got 
together and carefully digested a mass of 
material upon this somewhat abstruse sub- 
ject, as much exceeding in extent and value 
the results of the labors of his predecessors 
in the same field, as the data collected by 
Dr. Morton exceeds those of other investi- 
gators in his peculiar department, But as 
we are dealing only with results, it is for- 
eign to our purpose to do much more than 
present Mr. Gallatin's conclusions. These 
are substantially the same with those ar- 
rived at by Dr. Morton, although attained 
by a different path of investigation. He 
finds the languages of North America, 
notwithstanding their apparent diversity, 
to be in their elements sui generis, and 
radically the same : that is to say, charac- 
terized throughout (with casual exceptions 
easily accounted for) by a construe lion 
and combination entirely peculiar. Says 
Mi-. Gallatin, " The investigation of the 
languages of the Indians within the United 
States, east of the Rocky Mountains and 
north of the States, as far as the Polar Sea, 
has satisfactorily shown that, however dis- 
similar their words, their structure and 
grammatical forms are substantially the 
same. A general examination of the Mex- 
ican proper, and of the languages of Peru, 
of Chili, and of some other tribes of South 
America, has rendered it probable that, in 
that respect, all or nearly all the languages 
of America belong to the same family. 
This, if satisfactorily ascertained, would, 
connected with the similarity of physical 
type, prove a general, though not perhaps 
universal, common origin."* Later inves- 
tigations of the languages of the Indians of 
the Pacific coast, whose vocabularies were 
not sufficiently complete to justify a conclu- 
sion respecting them, at the time this par- 
agraph was written, have shown, according 
to the same authority, that, "In their 
grammatical characteristics, so far as these 



tive character of the American familie 
would never have been called in question, 
had it not been for the necessity which 
many learned and pious men have thought 
to be imposed by the Bible, of deriving all 
varieties of the human species from a 
single pair on the banks of the Euphrates. 
Taking it for granted that the Indians are 
descendants of some one or more of the 
diversified nations to which earliest history 
refers, they directed their inquiries to 
which of these their progenitors might be 
with most exactness referred. The hy- 
potheses to which these assumptions have 
given rise are almost innumerable. That 
ascribing to them a Jewish origin has re- 
ceived the widest assent, not because it is 
a whit better supported than any of the 
others, but simply because the knowledge 
which is generally possessed of the char- 
acter, habits, customs, etc. etc. of primitive 
nations is derived from the scriptural ac- 
count of the Jews. Forgetting that all 
people, at some stage of their advance- 
ment, must sustain many resemblances 
towards each other, resulting, as already 
asserted, from a coincidence in circum- 
stances, they have founded their conclu- 
sions upon what is conditional and chang- 
ing, instead of what is fixed and radical. 
"They have," in the language of the 
philosophical Warburton, " the old, in- 
veterate error, that a similitude of customs 
and manners, amongst the various tribes 
of mankind most remote from each other, 
must needs arise from some communica- 
tion. Whereas human nature, without 
any help, will in the same circumstances 
always exhibit the same appearances."* 

Passing by these hypotheses with the 
remark that most are absurd and many 
impossible, we return to what may be re- 
o-arded as fixed in conformity with those 
essential principles upon which alone sound 
philosophical researches can be conducted. 
So far as physical traits and cnrniological 
characteristics extend, we have the conclu- 
sions of Dr. Morton and others, already 
presented in a previous page. Regarding 
fihese as amply sustained by the great 
number and variety of facts which have 

shade. This is confirmed by Schomburgk and 
other accurate observers. 

* Divine Legation of Moses, vol. iii. p. 991. 



* Notes on the Semi civilized Nations of Central 
America, &c, p. 10. 



American 



can be determined, they belong to the same 
class as the other aboriginal Indians of 
America. Many of the forms are precisely 
the same as those which occur in the lan- 
guages of the eastern and southern tribes 
of the continent/' The casual resem- 
blances of certain words in the languages 
of America, and those of the Old World, 
cannot be taken as evidences of a common 
origin. Such coincidences may easily be 
accounted for as the results of accident, 
or, at most, of local infusions, which were 
without any extended effect. The entire 
number of common words is said to be, 
one hundred and eighty-seven ; of these, 
one-hundred and four coincide with words 
found in the languages of Asia and Aus- 
tralia ; forty-three with those of Europe, 
and forty with those of Africa. It can 
hardly be supposed that these facts are 
sufficient to prove a connection between 
the four hundred dialects of America, and 
the various languages of the other conti- 
nent.'* ' It is, as observed by Mr. Gallatin, 
not in accidental coincidences of sound or 
meaning, but in a comparison of the gen- 
eral structure and character of the Ameri- 
can languages with those of other countries, 
that we can expect to find similitudes at 
all conclusive or worthy of remark, in de- 
termining the question of a common origin. 
And it is precisely in these respects that 
we discover the strongest evidences of the 
essential peculiarity of the American lan- 
guages ; here they coincide with each 
other, and here exhibit the most striking 
contrasts with all the others of the globe. 
The diversities which have sprung up, and 
which have resulted in so many dialectical 
modifications, as shown in the numberless 
vocabularies, furnish a wide field of investi- 
gation. Mr. Gallatin draws a conclusion 
from the circumstance, which is quite as 
fatal to the popular hypotheses respecting 
the origin of the Indians, as the more 
sweeping conclusions of Dr. Morton. It 
is the length of time which this prodigious 
subdivision of languages in America must 
have required, making every allowance for 
the greater changes to which unwritten 
languages are liable, and for the necessary 
breaking up of nations in a hunter state, 
into separate communities. For these 



* Morton's Distinctive Characteristics, &c, 
p. 17. 



Ethnology. 7 



changes, or modifications, Mr. Gallatin 
claims we must have the very longest time 
which we are permitted to assume ; and 
if it is considered necessary to derive the 
American race from the other continent, 
that the migration must have taken place 
at the earliest assignable period. 

These conclusions were advanced by 
Mr. Duponceau as early as 1819, in sub- 
stantially the following language : 

1. That the American languages in gen- 
eral are rich in words and grammatical 
forms ; and that, in their complicated con- 
struction, the greatest order, method and 
regularity prevail. 

2. That these complicated forms, which 
he calls polysynthic, appear to exist in all 
these languages from Greenland to Cape 
Horn. 

3. That these forms differ essentially 
from those of the ancient and modern lan- 
guages of the old hemisphere. 

It is, however, but just to observe, that 
the credit of having first discovered the 
remarkable phenomena Avhich the Ameri- 
can system of languages presents, is pro- 
bably due to the learned Vater, to whom 
the eminent Adelung left the work of 
completing the Mithridates or " All<re- 
meine Sprachenkunde." He observes : " In 
Greenland as well as in Peru, on the Hud- 
son River, in Massachusetts as well as in 
Mexico, and as far as the banks of the Ori- 
noco, languages are spoken displaying 
forms more artfully distinguished, and 
more numerous, than almost any other 
idioms in the world possess." * * * 
" When we consider these artfully a,nd 
laboriously contrived languages, which, 
though existing at points separated from 
each other by so many thousands of miles, 
have assumed a character not less re- 
markably similar among themselves, than 
, different from the principles of all other 
languages, it is certainly the most natural 
conclusion, that these common methods of 
construction have their origin from a single 
point ; and that there has been one general 
source from which the culture of languages 
in America has been diffused, and which 
has been the common centre of its diversi- 
fied idioms." 

The same phenomena was adverted to 
by Humboldt, whose authority carries with 
it vast weight in all that relates to America. 
He says : " In America, (and this result of 



8 



American Ethnology, 



modern researches is extremely important 
with respect to the history of our species,) 
from the country of the Esquimaux to the 
banks of the Oronoco, and, again, from 
these torrid banks to the frozen straits of 
Magellan, mother tongues, entirely differ- 
ent with regard to their roots, have, if we 
may use the expression, the same physiog- 
nomy. Striking analogies of grammatical 
construction are acknowledged, not only 
in the more perfect languages, as that of 
the Incas, the Aymara, the Guarini, the 
Mexican and the Cora, but also in lan- 
guages extremely rude. Idioms, the roots 
of which do not resemble each other more 
than the roots of the Sclavonian and Bis- 
cayan, have those resemblances of internal 
mechanism which are found in the San- 
scrit, the Greek and the German languages. 
* % * j t j s on account of their general 
analogy in structure ; it is because Ameri- 
can languages which have no word in com- 
mon, (the Mexican, for instance, and the 
Quichua,) resemble each other by their 
organization, and form complete contrasts 
with other languages of the globe, that 
the Indians of the missions familiarize 
themselves more easily with other Ameri- 
can idioms, than with the language of the 
mistress country."* 

It is not necessary to multiply authori- 
ties upon this point ; for it is worthy of 
remark that every philologist of distinction 
who has investigated the subject, has ar- 
rived at precisely the same conclusions ; 
although few have ventured to make pub- 
lic the deductions to which they inevitably 
lead. The doctrine of a diversity of origin 
in the human race, although gathering 
supporters daily, has yet so few open ad- 
vocates, and is generally esteemed so radi- 
cal a heresy, that investigators in this, as 
in many other departments of science, 
hesitate in pushing their researches to 
their ultimate results. The discussion of 
the question cannot, however, be long 
postponed, and it is not difficult to foresee 
in what manner it will be finally deter- 
mined . 

It should be observed, further, that 
although all the American languages pos- 
sess common elementary features and 
powers, many of the different vocabularies 
sustain towards each other still closer 



* Personal Narrative, vol. iii, p. 248. 



resemblances, authorizing their arrange- 
ment into groups ; and, in conjunction with 
other circumstances, forming the basis of 
the aggregation of scattered tribes into 
families, designated as the Algonquin, Ir- 
roquois, etc. Within these groups there 
are not only grammatical but verbal re- 
semblances, easily detected, notwithstand- 
ing that they extend over regions of the 
continent as wide as those which fall within 
the range of the most extensively dis- 
persed languages of the Old World. We 
cannot however go into a detailed notice 
of these, nor yet of the general character- 
istics of the American languages.* 

Such are some of the leading results of 
physiological and philological inquiries re- 
lating to the aboriginal inhabitants of 
America. It yet remains to be seen how 
far an investigation of their religious con- 
ceptions and notions shall serve to confirm 
these results. This will prove an inquiry 
of great difficulty ; for if we assume that 
the religious sentiment is inherent, and its 
expression in accordance Avith natural sug- 
gestions — then the nearer we approach 
the first stages of human development, the 
more numerous and the more striking will 
be the coincidences and resemblances in 
the various religions of the globe, however 
widely they may appear to differ at the 
present time. If, however, we shall find 
a general concurrence in what may be 
ascertained to be conventional or arbitrary 
in the various religious systems, then we 
may rea.se nably infer a community of ori- 
gins, or a connection more or less remote. 

As the result of a pretty extended in- 
vestigation of the subject, it may be 
affirmed that the predominant religious 
conceptions of America have found their 
expression in some modification of what is 
usually denominated "Sun worship," but 
which might with more propriety be de- 
fined to be an adoration of the powers of 
Nature. This seems to have been, through- 
out the globe, the earliest form of human 

* Those who desire minutely to investigate the 
subject, will find ample materials in the " Mith- 
ridates" of Adelung and Vater, Gallatin on the 
Indian Tribes, (second volume of the Transactions 
of the American Antiquarian Society,) Dupon- 
ceau's Correspondence with Heckewelder, (Trans- 
actions of the Literary and Historical Depart- 
ment of the American Philosophical Soc.,) Trans- 
actions of the American Ethnological Soc, vols, 
i. and ii., etc. 



American Ethnology. 



9 



superstition, dating back far beyond the 
historical, and even beyond the tradition- 
ary period of man's existence. It lies at 
the basis of all the primitive mythological 
systems with which we are acquainted, 
and may still be found under a complica- 
tion of later engraftments and refinements, 
derivative and otherwise, in the religions of 
Hindustan. It may be traced, in America, 
from its simplest or least clearly defined 
form, among the roving hunters and squalid 
Esquimaux of the North, through every 
intermediate stage of development, to the 
imposing systems of Mexico and Peru, 
where it took a form nearly corresponding 
with that which it at one time sustained 
on the banks of the Ganges, and on the 
plains of Assyria. The evidence in sup- 
port of these assertions is far too volumi- 
nous to be adduced here ; it would, be- 
sides, involve preliminary and collateral 
discussions, into which it would be out of 
place to enter in a popular periodical. 
Upon the assumption that we are correct, 
there is, from our point of view, no diffi- 
culty in accounting for these identities, 
without claiming a common origin for the 
nations displaying them. Alike in the ele- 
ments of their mental and moral constitu- 
tions ; having common hopes and aspira- 
tions, whatever the form which, from the 
force of circumstances they may have as- 
sumed ; moved by the same impulses, and 
actuated by similar motives, is it surprising 
that there should exist among nations of 
men the most widely separated, a wonder- 
ful unity of elementary beliefs and con- 
ceptions ? All have before them the sug- 
gestions of Nature, the grand phenomena 
of which are everywhere the same ; and 
all from their observance would be apt 
to arrive at similar results. The idea of a 
beginning and of a creative power is clearly 
stamped upon all nature, and, in an ob- 
scure or more distinct form, is an inevitable 
result of human reasoning. This assertion 
may be controverted by those who esteem 
this grand conception inherent, or the re- 
sult of divine communications; but all 
are agreed that it is as universal as man. 
The simplicity of the original conception 
no doubt became greatly modified in the 
course of time. As the first step of reli- 
gious refinement, the First Principle came 
to be invested with attributes which were 
commemorated and adapted to the com- 

VOL. III. NO. IV. NEW SERIES. 



prehension of men through the medi- 
um of symbols ; God came to be emblem- 
atized under a variety of aspects, as God 
the Life-giver, God the Omnipotent, the 
Eternal, the Beneficent, the Vigilant, 
the Destroyer, the Avenger. That this 
refinement in some* instances degene- 
rated from apparent into actual polythe- 
ism cannot be doubted; but the instan- 
ces will be found less common than is 
generally supposed, when we come to 
analyze the predominant religions of the 
globe. That a variety of symbols, all 
referring to the same great principle, yet 
having, to the superficial view, no relation 
to each other, resulted from this process, 
is therefore no matter of surprise. 

In the absence of a written language or 
of forms of expression capable of convey- 
ing abstract ideas, we can readily compre- 
hend the necessity, among a primitive peo- 
ple, of a symbolic system. That symbol- 
ism in a great degree resulted from this 
necessity, is very obvious ; and that, asso- 
ciated with man's primitive religious sys- 
tems, it was afterwards continued, when, 
in the advanced stage of the human mind, 
the previous necessity no longer existed, 
is equally undoubted. It thus came to 
constitute a kind of sacred language, and 
becomes invested with an esoteric signifi- 
cance, understood only by the few. With 
the mass of men, the meanings of the 
original emblem, or the reason for its adop- 
tion — the necessity for its use being super- 
seded — was finally forgotten, or but imper- 
fectly remembered. A superstitious rever- 
ence, the consequence of long association, 
and encouraged by a cunning priesthood, 
nevertheless continued to attach to the 
symbol, which, from being the representa- 
tion of an adorable attribute or manifesta- 
tion of God, became itself an object of 
adoration. Such was the origin of idola- 
try in its common or technical sense.* 



* " The learned Brahmans," observes Mr. Ers- 
kine, acknowledge and adore one God, -without 
form or quality, eternal, unchangeable, and occu- 
pying all space ; yet they teach in public a re- 
ligion in which, in supposed compliance with the 
infirmities and passions of human nature, the 
Deity has been brought more to a level with our 
own prejudices and wants, and the incomprehen- 
sible attributes assigned to him invested with 
sensible and even human forms." (Colman's 
Hindu Mythology, p. 1.) The Brahmans allege 
" that it is easier to impress the minds of men by 
26 



10 



American Ethnology. 



The necessity for a symbolical system, 
which we have assumed as consequent 
upon man's primitive circumstances, ex- 
isted alike amongst all early nations ; and 
as the result of that uniformity of mental 
and moral constitution, and of physical 
circumstances to which we have referred, 
their sjonbols possessed a like uniformity. 
We may take an example. The Sun, the 
dispenser of heat and light, the vivifier, 
beneficent and genial in its influences, the 
most obvious, as it is the most potent and 
glorious object in the natural creation, 
fitly and almost universally emblematized 
the First Principle. With its annually 
returning strength the germs quickened, 
the leaves and blossoms unfolded them- 
selves; and beneath its glow the fruits 
ripened, and the earth was full of luxuri- 
ance and life. Under this aspect it was 
God the Life-giver, God the Beneficent. 
In its unwearied course, its daily journey 
through the skies, it symbolized the 
Eternal God. In its dazzling and intense 
splendor it reflected the matchless glories 
of the Being whose unveiled face "no 
man can see and live." It is therefore no 
matter of surprise that sun-worship was 
among the earliest and most widely dis- 
seminated forms of human adoration. It 
may be said to have been universal. 
Among nations the most remote from 
each other, from the torrid to the frigid 
zones, under one modification or another, 
this worship has existed. As Phre, or 
Serapis, among the Egyptians ; as Bel, 



intelligible symbols than by means which are in- 
comprehensible." 

" In India the powers of nature are personified, 
and each quality, mental and physical, had its 
emblem, which the Brahmins taught the ignorant 
to regard as realities, till the Pantheon became 
so crowded, that fife would be too short to 
acquire even the nomenclature of their 33,000,000 
of gods." — Tod's Majasfhan, vol. i, p. 536. 

Savary, noticing the corruptions of the religion 
of Egypt, observes : " It was not the intent of the 
priesthood at first to enslave their nation to the 
wretched superstition that did prevail. The 
necessity of expressing themselves by allegorical 
fables, before the invention of letters, and the 
keeping of these representations in their tem- 
ples, accustomed the people to hold them sacred. 
When writing became familiar, and they had 
wholly forgot their first meaning, they no longer 
set bounds to their veneration, but actually wor- 
shipped symbols which their fathers had only 
honored." — Savary'e Egypt, letter xxix. 



Baal, Belus, or Moloch, among the Chal- 
deans ; Mithras of the Persians ; Apollo 
of the Greeks ; Suyra of the Hindoos ; 
Odin of the Scandinavians ; Baiwe of the 
Laplanders ; or, as the chief object of 
adoration in Mexico and Peru, the sun has 
had its myriads of worshippers from the 
earliest dawn of traditionary history. Its 
worship spread over America as it did 
over Europe and Africa, and man's ac- 
credited birthplace in Asia. It was at- 
tended by simple, as also by complicated 
ceremonies. The Indian hunter of North 
America acknowledged his homage in 
silence, with uplifted arms and outspread 
palms, or by a breath from his half sacred 
pipe. And the Peruvian Inca, " the Son 
of the Sun," in his double office of priest 
and king, paid his adoration, with gor- 
geous rites, in temples encrusted with 
gold, and blazing with the reflected glory 
of the solar god. 

Regarding then the uniformity which 
we have already pointed out in man's 
constitution, attended by a like uniformity 
of natural circumstances, as resulting 
almost of necessity in corresponding uni- 
formity in his beliefs and conceptions, and 
their modes of manifestation, we shall be 
prepared to find in America the traces of 
a primitive religion, essentially the same 
with that which underwent so many mo- 
difications in the Old World, illustrated by 
analogous symbols, and attended by 
similar rites. We shall further be pre- 
pared to remark these resemblances as the 
natural results of fixed causes, without 
sinking the Atlantides in an overwhelming 
cataclysm, or leading vagrant tribes 
" through deserts vast, and regions of 
eternal snow ;" or invoking the shadowy 
Thorfinn, or the apocryphal "Madoc, 
with his ten ships," to account for the 
form of a sacrifice, or the method of an 
incantation ! 

Having entered this caveat against any 
attempt which might be made to press 
the admission, or rather the assertion, of 
a close correspondence between the reli- 
gious systems of the Old and New Worlds, 
into the support of the popular hypothesis 
which derives the aborigines of America 
from Tartary, Hindustan, or the shores 
of the Mediterranean, we return to the 
matters in hand, merely observing that 
the subject here touched upon is one of 



American Ethnology. 



11 



high interest, and deserving a thorough in- 
vestigation. 

The inquiries of students in the de- 
partment of psychology, so far as the 
American race is concerned, have not 
been productive of any satisfactory re- 
sults. This is not surprising, in consider- 
ation of the subtle nature of the elements 
to which they must be directed. Such 
investigations cannot probably be pursued 
with any degree of confidence, until it is 
determined how far man is a creature of 
circumstances, and whether, as a general 
rule, and dealing with aggregates, families 
of men may not, when subjected to like 
influences for long periods, exhibit very 
nearly, if not precisely, the same psycho- 
logical aspects. History is not old enough 
to enable us to speak confidently upon so 
profound a subject. Except by interblend- 
ings, the great races of men having, phy- 
siologically, retained their essential fea- 
tures from the earliest periods with which 
we are acquainted. Analogy, it might be 
said, would imply that, psychically, the 
same law holds good. But if we assent 
to this, we must deny the power of men- 
tal develop merit ; deny that in his higher 
nature man is capable of infinite progres- 
sion. " By taking thought, no man can 
make one hair white or black," but he 
may carry his intellectual attainments to 
unsuspected heights. All psychical de- 
velopment must of necessity be in a single 
direction, and must pass through precisely 
the same stages, whenever an advance is 
made. 

.It may be said that some families are 
fierce — others mild ; but it is by no means 
certain that a reversal in the circumstan- 
ces under which they are placed would 
not change the destructive savage into the 
mild agriculturist, and the peaceable tiller 
of the soil into the fierce and predatory 
nomad. 

Dr. Morton says of the moral traits of 
the American aborigines: " Among the 
the most prominent, is a sleepless caution, 
an untiring vigilance, which presides over 
every action, and marks every motive. 
The Indian says nothing and does nothing 
without its influence ; it enables him to 
deceive others without being himself sus- 
pected ; it causes that proverbial tacitur- 
nity among strangers, which changes to 
garrulity among people of his own tribe ; 



I and it is the basis of that invincible firm- 
ness which teaches him to contend unre- 
piningly with every adverse circumstance, 
and even with death in its most hideous 
form." The same author adduces the 
love of war, as another characteristic 
trait, which developes itself on all occa- 
sions, and continues : "It may be said 
that these features of the Indian character 
are common to all mankind in the savage 
state. This is generally true, but they 
exist in the American race in a degree 
which will fairly challenge a comparison 
with similar traits in .any existing people ; 
and if we consider also their habitual in- 
dolence and improvidence, their indiffer- 
ence to private property, and the vague 
simplicity of their religious observances, 
we must admit them to possess a peculiar 
and eccentric moral constitution." Dr. 
Morton notices the exceptions which the 
Peruvians and other nations seem to ex- 
hibit, but attributes their changed con- 
dition to the far-seeing policy of the Incas, 
and the combination of circumstances 
which they brought to bear upon the In- 
dian mind. " After the Inca power was 
destroyed," he says, " the dormant spirit 
of the people was again aroused in all the 
moral vehemence of the race, and the 
gentle and unoffending Peruvian became 
transformed into the wily and merciless 
savage." 

In respect to the intellectual character 
of the American race, the same authority: 
observes: "It is my matured conviction* 
that as a race they are decidedly inferior 
to the Mongolian stock. They are not only 
averse to the restraints of education, but 
seem for the most part incapable of a con- 
tinued process of reasoning on abstract 
subjects. Their minds seize with avidity 
on simple truths, while they reject what- 
ever requires investigation or analysis, 
Their proximity for more than two centu- 
ries to European communities^ has scarcelv 
affected an appreciable change in their 
manner of life, and as to their social con- 
dition, they are probably in most respects 
the same as at the primitive epoch of their 
existence. They have made no improve- 
ments in the construction of their dwell- 
ings, except when directed by Europeans. 
Their imitative faculty is of a very humble 
grade, nor have they any predilection for 
the arts and sciences. The long annals of 



12 



American Ethnology. 



missionary labor and private benefaction 
present few exceptions to this cheerless 
picture, which is sustained by the testi- 
mony of nearly all practical observers." 
From these remarks, however, Dr. Mor- 
ton excepts those nations which fall within 
what he denominates the "Toltecan Fami- 
ly." " Contrasted with the intellectual po- 
verty of the barbarous tribes, like an oasis 
in a desert, are the demi- civilized nations 
of the New World, a people whose attain- 
ment in the arts and sciences are a riddle 
in the history of the human mind. The 
Peruvians in the south, the Mexicans in 
the north, and the Muyscas of Bogota 
between the two, formed these contempo- 
rary centres of civilization, each inde- 
pendent of the other, and each equally 
skirted by wild and savage hordes. The 
mind dwells with surprise and admiration 
on their cyclopean structures, which often 
rival those of Egypt in magnitude ; on 
their temples, which embrace almost every 
principle of architecture ; and on their sta- 
tues and bas-reliefs, which are far above 
the rudimentary state of the arts. * * * 
It follows of course, from the preceding re- 
marks, that we consider the American 
race to present the two extremes of intel- 
lectual character ; the one capable of a cer- 
tain degree of civilization and refinement, 
independent of extraneous aids, the other 
exhibiting an abasement which puts all 
mental culture at defiance. The one com- 
posed, as it were, of a handful of people, 
whose superiority and consequent acquisi- 
tions made them the prey of covetous de- 
stroyers; the other a vast multitude of 
savage tribes, whose very barbarism is 
working their destruction from within and 
without." 

A learned German traveller, Dr. Yon 
Martius, whose works on the nations of 
South America, as observed by Prichard, 
are well known and highly appreciated, 
has in strong terms asserted that a psycho- 
logical difference exists between the Ame- 
rican race and those of the Old World. He 
has sketched his hypothesis with a bold 
hand, and with a force which we seldom 
find surpassed in writings upon these sub- 
jects. 

{: The indigenous race of the New World 
is distinguished from all the other nations of 
the eaithj externally, by peculiarities of make, 



but still more, internally, by their state of mind 
and intellect. The aboriginal American is at 
once in the incapacity of infancy and unpliancy 
of old age ; he unites the opposite poles of in- 
tellectual life. This strange and inexplicable 
condition has hitherto frustrated every attempt 
to reconcile him with the European, to whom 
he gives way, so as to make him a cheerful and 
happy member of the community ; and it is 
this, his double nature, which presents the great- 
est difficulty to Science when she endeavors to 
investigate his origin, and those earlier epochs 
of history, in which he has for thousands of 
years moved indeed, but made no improvements 
in his condition. But this is far removed from 
that natural state of child-like security which 
marked (as an inward voice declares to us, and 
as the most ancient written documents affirm) 
the first and foremost period, of the history of 
mankind. The men of the red race, on the 
contrary, it must be confessed, do not appear to 
feel the blessings of a divine descent, but to 
have been led by merely animal instinct and 
tardy steps through a dark past to their actual 
cheerless present. Much, therefore, seems to 
indicate that they are not in the first stage of 
that simple, we might say, physical develop- 
ment — that they are in a secondary, regen- 
erated state. 

" To guide the inquirer through the intri- 
cacies of this labyrinthine inquiry, there is not 
a vestige of history to afford any clue. Not a 
ray of tradition, not a war-song, not a funeral 
lay can be found to clear away the dark night 
in which the earlier ages of America are in- 
volved. 

" Far beyond the rude condition in which the 
aboriginal American was found, and separated 
by the obscurity of ages, lies a nobler past 
which he once enjoyed, but which can now 
only be inferred from a few relics. Colossal 
works of architecture (as those at Tiaguanico 
on the Lake Titieaca, which the Peruvians, 
as far back as the time of the Spanish conquest, 
beheld with wonder as the remains of a more 
ancient people — raised, according to their tra- 
ditions, in a sino-le night — and similar crea- 
tions scattered in enigmatic fragments here 
and there over both the Americas) bear wit- 
ness that their inhabitants had, in remote ages, 
developed a mental cultivation and a moral 
power which have now entirely vanished. ^ A 
mere semblance of these, an attempt to bring 
back a period which had long passed by, seems 
perceptible in the kingdom and institutions of 
the Ir.cas. In Brazil no such traces of an ear- 
lier civilization have yet been discovered, and if 
it ever existed here it must have been in a very 
remote period ; yet still, even the condition of 
the Brazilians, as of every other American peo- 
ple, furnishes proofs that the inhabitants of this 
new continent, as it is called, are by no means 
a modern race, even supposing we could as- 



American Ethnology. 



13 



sume our Christian chronology as a measure 
for the age and historical development of their 
country. This irrefragable evidence is furnished 
by Nature herself, in the domestic animals and 
esculent plants by which the aboriginal Ameri- 
can is surrounded, and which trace an essen- 
tial feature in the history of his mental culture. 
Ti'ie present state of the productions of Nature 
is a documentary proof, that in America she 
has been already for many thousands of years 
influenced by the impressing and transform- 
ing hand of man. 

" It is my conviction that the first germs of 
development of the human race in America 
can be sought nowhere except in that quarter 
of the globe. 

" Besides the traces of a primeval and, in like 
manner, ante-historic culture of the human 
race in America, as well as a very early influ- 
ence on the productions of Nature, we may also 
adduce as a ground for these views the basis of 
the present state of natural and civil rights 
among the aboriginal Americans — I mean pre- 
cisely as before observed, that enigmatical 
subdivision of the nations into an almost count- 
less number of greater and smaller groups, and 
that almost entire exclusion and excommuni- 
cation with regard to each other, in which 
mankind presents its different families to us in 
America, like fragments of a vast ruin. The 
history of thp other nations inhabiting the 
earth furnishes nothing which has any analo- 
gy to this. 

" This disruption of all the bands by which 
society was anciently held together, accompa- 
nied by a Babylonish confusion of tongues 
multiplied by it, the rude right of force, the 
never-ending tacit warfare of all against all, 
springing from that very disruption, appear to 
me the most essential, and, as far as history is 
concerned, the most significant point in the 
civil condition of the savage tribes. Such a 
state of society cannot be the consequence of 
modern revolutions. It indicates, by marks 
which cannot be overlooked, the lapse of many 
ages. 

" Long continued migrations of single na- 
tions and tribes have doubtless taken place 
from a very early period throughout the whole 
continent of America, and they may have 
been especially the causes of dismemberment 
and corruption in the languages, and of a cor- 
responding demoralization of the people. By 
assuming that only a few leading nations were 
at first dispersed like so many rays of light, 
mingled together and dissolved, as it were, fnto 
each other by mutual collision, and that these 
migrations, divisions and subsequent combina- 
tions have been continued for countless ages, 
the present state of mankind in America may 
assuredly be accounted for ; but the cause of 
this singular misdevelopment remains, no less 
on that account, unknown and enigmatical. 

" Can it be conjectured that some extensive 



convulsion of Nature — some earthquake rend- 
ing asunder sea and land, such as is reported 
to have swallowed up the far-famed island of 
Atalantis — has then swept away the inhabit- 
ants in its vortex ? Has such a calamity filled 
the survivors with a terror so monstrous, as, 
handed down from race to race, must have 
darkened and perplexed their intellects, hard- 
ened their hearts, and driven them, as if flying 
at random from each other, far from the bless- 
ings of social life ? Have, perchance, burn- 
ing and destructive suns, or overwhelming 
floods, threatened the man of the red race with 
a horrible death by famine, and armed him 
with a rude and unholy hostility, so that, mad- 
dened against himself by atrocious and bloody 
acts of cannibalism, he has fallen from the god- 
like dignity for which he was designed, to his 
present degraded state of darkness? Or is this 
inhumanizing, the consequence of deeply root- 
ed preternatural vices, inflicted by the genius 
of our race (with a severity which, to the eye 
of a short-sighted observer, appears through- 
out all nature like cruelty) on the innocent as 
well as on the guilty ? 

'" It is impossible to entirely discard the idea 
of some general defect in the organization 
of the red race ; for it is manifest it al- 
ready bears within itself the germs of an 
early extinction. Other nations will live 
when these unblessed children of the New T 
World have all gone to their rest in the 
long sleep of death. Their songs have long 
ceased to resound, their giant edifices are 
mouldering down, and no elevated spirit has 
revealed itself in any noble effusion from that 
quarter of the globe. Without being recon- 
ciled with the nations of the East, or with 
their own fortunes, they are already vanishing 
away ; yes, it almost appears as if no other in- 
tellectual life was allotted to them than that of 
calling forth our painful compassion, as if they 
existed only for the negative purpose of awak- 
ening our astonishment by the spectacle of a 
whole race of men, the inhabitants of a large 
part of the globe, in a state of living decay. 

"In fact, the present and future condition ot 
this red race of men, who wander about in their 
native land, where the most benevolent and 
brotherly love despairs of ever providing them 
with a home, is a monstrous and tangible drama, 
such as no fiction of the past has ever yet pre- 
sented to our contemplation. A whole race of 
men is wasting before the eyes of its commise- 
rating contemporaries : no power of princes, 
philosophy, or Christianity, can avert its proud, 
gloomy progress towards a certain and utter 
destruction."* 



* " On the state of Civil and Natural Rights 
among the Aborigines of the Brazils," by C. T. 
Ph. Von Ma rtius.— Synopsis, Royal Geograph. 
Soc. Trans. Yol. 2. 



14 



American Ethnology, 



There is much of rhetoric, if not of 
sound philosophy, in these observations of 
Dr. Von Martius. By presenting, how- 
ever, we do not wish to be understood to 
endorse them. Our object is to give, in a 
rapid review, the results which have fol- 
lowed the investigation of these subjects 
by competent and philosophical minds, as 
distinguished from the shallow hypotheses 
and absurd conjectures of pretenders. As 
already observed, America has unfortu- 
nately been the country of systems ; it 
has called out the prejudices of the Dutch 
Du Pauw and the Scotch Robertson ; and 
been the subject of innumerable essays by 
charlatans c.nd fools, by George Joneses and 
Josiah Priests, — an array unmatched for its 
complacent ignorance and stupid assurance. 

It has not yet been satisfactorily shown 
that the American race is deficient in in- 
tellect, or that there is that wide difference 
in their " moral nature, their affections 
and consciences," which some have assert- 
ed. The history of aboriginal art remains 
yet to be written — indeed, the extent of 
its development is yet to be ascertained. 
The glimpses which Ave have afforded us 7 
entitle the rations which occupied the cen- 
tral parts of the continent to rank equally 
high, in this respect, with the people of 
Hindustan and the ancient Egyptians. 
And, as observed by Prichard, " a peo- 
ple who, like the Mexicans, unaided by 
foreigners, formed a more complete calen- 
dar than the Greeks, and had ascertained 
with precision the length of the solar year, 
could not be deficient in intelligence." A 
race of men which shows us an example 
of a far-seeing policy like that displayed 
in the Iroquois confederation, before hav- 
ing attained to that decree of civilization 
which everywhere else has preceded such 
a display of forecast and wisdom, cannot 
be said to exhibit the " incapacity of in- 
fancy." A people who, like the Pe- 
ruvians, had civil and social institutions 
nearly perfect as machineries of gov- 
ernment and national organization, " pos- 
sessing an indefinite power of expan- 
sion and suited to the most flourish- 
ing condition of the empire as well as to 
its infant fortunes" — such a people can- 
not be said to exhibit the " unpliancy of 
old age," or to be incapable of the highest 
attainments to which humanity may as- 



pire. "Nor can it be said that a people 
peaceable but brave, virtuous, honest, and 
approaching nearer than any other exam- 
ple which history affords, to the poetical 
idea of Arcadian simplicity and happiness, 
like those who inhabited the country above 
the Gila and the valley of New Mexico — 
that such a people " have never felt the 
blessings of divine descent," but have been 
left to their own dark natures and " pre- 
ternatural" vicious instincts ! 

The assertion of the incapacity of the 
aborigines to profit by their associations 
with other races, is practically disproved 
at the southwest, where the Florida In- 
dians are now located. It will not be as- 
serted, by those informed on the subject, 
that their condition is one whit inferior 
to that of their white neighbors on the 
frontier. When the Indians shall be treat- 
ed as human beings, and not as wild ani- 
mals ; when they shall be relieved from 
the contamination of unprincipled hunters 
and traders, and the moral charlatanism 
of ignorant and narrow-minded missiona- 
ries ; when Ave shall pursue towards them 
a just, enlightened, and truly Cm-kitian 
policy ; then, if they shall exhibit no ad- 
vancement, and uftimately reach a re- 
spectable rank in the scale of civilization, 
it will be quite time enough to pronounce 
upon them the severe sentence of a defi- 
cient intellect and an unhallowed heart — 
dead to sympathy, and incapable of higher 
developments. Till then, with the black 
catalogue of European wrongs and oppres- 
sions before him, and the grasping hand 
of powerful avarice at his throat, blame 
not the American Indian if he sternly and 
gloomily prefers utter extinction to an as- 
sociation with races which have exhibited 
to him no benign aspect, and whose touch 
has been death. 

Lest, however, the tearful veil of sym- 
pathy should obscure the cold eye of phi- 
losophy, Ave return to our original purpose. 
In the next number of the Review we 
shall notice, in some detail, the contribu- 
tions which have recently been made to the 
Ethnology and Archaeology of America, 
and to the consideration of Avhich the pre- 
ceding crude and imperfect resume of what 
has thus far been accomplished, in these 
departments, is only preliminary. 



W44 ' 





'I 



/ V^^V %*^V V*^\** °o. ^ 



„4 >^ 





: ^ , ... ■ V- 





1 : ; .> -C> 





a Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent; Magnesium Oxide 
\« <A(r Treatment Date: March 2010 

" PreservationTechnologies 



y ... v 




h 4 




A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 



* AT ^6 o 




***** .% 




r 






r oV" 







9 Nft. e£ * 
v 



- 






P 



< 




5. 



c if 





: 





pS»* **SBSts . ** v \ . '-w ** v % *°l 




• Ar- ^ v,** a||* ^ 



